Up in a tree

I went back to the place where I found the journals yesterday.   It was one of those sunny, windy mornings that promised a fine day.   (It didn’t end up that way, it just got more and more cloudy until it started to rain in early evening.   However this didn’t affect my morning).   Anyway, I’m not sure why, on a whim, I decided to go back.   I suppose over the last couple of weeks I’ve been so obsessed with translating the journals that I haven’t really had time to investigate where they came from, what they might be doing in the tree.

The tree was still there but the area was much more green and overgrown, it now being summer rather than autumn.   Looking at the place where I found the box, it was really difficult to see, almost invisible because of all the foliage.   I wonder whether this gives a clue as to when the box was hidden.   In the autumn it was relatively easy for me to notice the box, even from the road.   In the summer, even close up to the tree, it would have been more or less impossible to see it.   Could it be that whoever had hidden it did so in the summer?

And it seemed like that it must have been a very spur of the moment decision to hide the box in the tree.   If you had time, you would bury the box or conceal it in the attic or under the floorboards or choose any number of secure locations.   But to put it in a tree?   Could the author (or owner) have been on the run?   The box itself was in pretty poor condition, so it could have been in the tree for a while, years even.    Most people passing the spot would be whizzing past in a car or head down on their racing bike and probably wouldn’t notice anything.  Fortunately for us, the box served its purpose and the journals were fairly well preserved however long they had been there.

The location seems to point up even more the significance of the journals or at least give us some clue as to the author or owner.   It they weren’t valuable why not throw them away?   If they were valuable, why hide them in a tree?   I have this picture of someone running away, being pursued, desperate that his or her pursuers do not get their hands on the journals.  On an impulse they thrust the box into the tree and then ran on, drawing their pursuers away from the box.   Perhaps they were captured, perhaps not, but the journals were preserved.

This is probably just me being fanciful and there is a very prosaic explanation for all of this.   I just like to think that there is something more significant about the place where the journals were found.